Ghoulish White House Response to Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby advised Gazans Tuesday that their destruction and ethnic cleansing will continue relentlessly. “This is war. It is combat. It is bloody, ugly and it’s going to be messy and innocent civilians are going to be hurt going forward.”

No spokesman Kirby, not just hurt. Innocent civilians in Gaza are dying every day, every hour, every minute under thousands of bombs but no food, no water, no medicine; not even electricity to run their overwhelmed hospitals.

It’s no longer a war. It’s the mass destruction of 2.3 million Palestinians being systematically killed and driven from their open air prison by Israel and wholly enabled by the United States.

It is the worst, most grotesque and inhumane policy of the United State I’ve witnessed in my 70-plus years of following American foreign affairs.

Perpetual war in Ukraine that could go nuclear is not enough for Biden. He’s all in now for perpetual war in the Middle East that could explode into a massive regional war at any moment, if it doesn’t kill or remove all the Palestinians from Gaza first.

 

Vintage Chicago Trib ‘Freedom Day 1963’ story recalls 60 year buried memory

 

Vintage Chicago Trib ‘Freedom Day 1963’ story recalls 60 year buried memory

 

 

On October 22, 1963, I was in my second month as a University of Chicago freshman. My dorm mate Eric Gold and I volunteered to teach in a Freedom School set up by civil rights activists. They had called for a one day absence from school to protest Chicago School Board policy over portable school rooms derided as ‘Willis Wagons’ that School Super Benjamin C. Willis crammed into black school playgrounds to keep black students out of neighboring white schools. 

 

Eric and I bused from Hyde Park to a church at 49th and State to where we spent the day teaching the kids there about civics in a very personal way.

 

The Trib Vintage Chicago article on that one day protest that pulled over 200,000 students from regular school, triggered an ‘Oh my gosh’ moment…”I was there.”

 

It made me review my now 60 yearlong avocation of working in my own fashion for peace, social and political justice. I realized that Freedom Day 1963 was my first direct action in support of the causes I believe must be addressed by citizenry and the state. 

 

During those 60 years I've seen much progress on many issues I’ve supported. I’ve long realized the path of progress is never a straight line upward. Many times it stalls; ever can turn backward on a dime. Fifty years ago I rejoiced at Roe v. Wade, only to be disheartened when it was overturned this year.

Retired 10 years, I spend part of every healthy day I’m fortunate to enjoy, working for the better world I wish to see in my lifetime. My kids are thankful for my meager but committed efforts to leave them a better world. Someday my grandkids will too.

What's in a face?

 

What's in a face?

New GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson sure looks like a nice guy. But beneath that Choir Boy visage...beats the heart of a traitor to American democracy .

Will UAW kill the Electric Goose?

 

Will UAW kill the Electric Goose?

 

Between 1972 and 2013 I worked in logistics, primarily purchasing transportation for manufacturers.

My career coincided with federal deregulation of transportation, particularly that of trucking and airlines. Deregulation inflicted a profound demise on unionized truck lines. Ease of entry enabled thousands of new non-union truck outfits to peel off their business, saving shippers billions in transportation costs. 

 

Prior to deregulation, unionized truck lines had a form of monopoly since gaining new trucking authority was highly restricted, in part from union truck lines’ lobbying to keep it restricted.

During my career Teamster membership in union shops declined from 2 million to under 100,000. Just this year, storied Yellow Freight, a combination of 2 giants Yellow and Roadway, closed down after 99 years. The Teamsters made numerous concessions to keep union truckers afloat but the differential between union and non-union was just too great for union trucking to remain viable. 

 

Sadly, we may be seeing a repeat of the Teamster experience with the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against America’s Big 3: Ford, GM and Stellantis (Chrysler/Jeep). This is first time the UAW has struck all 3 at once. While wages and benefits remain priorities, job security over the transformation from gas to electric cars may be the most important issue prompting the strike. Forty-five days in, no settlement looms. 

 

It might be wise for the UAW to review the Teamster experience under deregulation. Like the Teamsters, the UAW has lost their monopoly when they once controlled virtually the entire market with unionized labor. Major competitors Tesla, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes are non-union, with resulting lower cost and staffing flexibility. That may not be fair…but it’s the new reality in the auto industry. 

 

Even worse, the UAW strike comes at a transformational moment in auto history as companies are racing to succeed in transitioning from gas to electric. Guess what? America’s Big 3 are already lagging behind their non-union competitors. They’ve collectively produced very few successful models. Tesla is not even in Big 3 headlight range. 

 

Even without the strike, Ford, GM and Stellantis will struggle to survive in the coming electric transformation. Being gobbled up by a non-union competitor is not out of the question.

The UAW may wish to rethink its strategy to protect and enhance its 150,000 auto workers. They may not be killing the Golden Goose, but may be short-circuiting the Electric Goose.

Why is Biden enabling genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza?

Why is Biden enabling genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza?  

Over 5,000 dead, mostly civilians, from 2 weeks of relentless Israeli bombing, turning much of the 139 square miles of Gaza into rubble, is a genocidal act of ethnic cleansing. It is designed to diminish, if not eliminate the 2.3 million Gazans. The many who have died from lack of food, water, medicine and electricity, while unknown, may be in the thousands as well. It is a monumental crime against humanity. 

Much of the world is repulsed, including many in Israel. Yesterday, dozens from local Chicago Jewish groups, If Not Now, Never Again Action and Jewish Voice for Peace, held up traffic in the Loop for over an hour during rush hour in their call for immediate ceasefire. Bravo.  

But not President Biden who is arming Israel and giving it a virtual blank check for an imminent invasion likely to further kill, degrade and ethnically cleanse those 2.3 million Palestinians. That imminent invasion may unleash blowback that could involve Iran, Lebanon and Syria; a regional conflict that may be uncontainable. .  

Biden preaches aid for starving, dying Palestinians but what has arrived is a pittance that will make no difference in their ongoing destruction from the worst collective punishment inflicted upon a civilian population in our lifetime.  His aid lip service is not soothing….it is deadly.  

Biden’s cruel greenlighting of Gaza’s impending demise is no surprise. He’s simply following US policy for the last 18 years supporting Israel’s blockade of Gaza since they withdrew in 2005. But he has the opportunity. It requires true, humane statesmanship to lead the world in confronting the need for a Palestinian state prevented by Israeli intransigence and enabled by the US for 75 years now. Biden should demand an immediate ceasefire. He should suspend all aid to Israel including the proposed $10 billion in weaponry to conduct their impending invasion.  

A more destructive US policy destroying peace and bringing needless death and suffering to millions is hard to imagine. But it is happening, which requires every American to demand Biden, his administration and Congress pivot from supporting relentless war to promoting a lasting peace between Israel and Gaza/West Bank.